Historical novelist and former U.S. Congressman Robert Mrazek here offers a poignant and gripping portrait of the men of Torpedo Squadron 8 (VT-8), many of whom were killed in a valiant but failed attempt to attack the Japanese fleet at Midway in 1942 in obsolete torpedo bombers. Even so, their efforts proved vital to the success of the bombers that followed them, and the remains of VT-8 went on to serve at Guadalcanal, where they pieced together damaged planes to keep fighting. Mrazek introduces us to each of these individuals, telling stories of their personal lives and their fates. "A Dawn Like Thunder melds a good story with solid and skeptical research," wrote Robert Bateman in the Washington Post. "Fast-paced and yet personal, Mrazek's narrative carries the reader to Midway quickly. But it does not stop there, as so many other accounts have.... With A Dawn Like Thunder Mrazek earns the title of historian, one that this reviewer does not apply lightly."